Friday Smiles

Hello Everyone,

Friday - possibly the best day of the week. Made even better when we can join Annie, A Stitch In Time, with a mini review of what has made us smile this week.

First up are these lovely snaps of my daughter and son-in-law.

As the EM was just out of hospital, and we hadn't had time to stock up beforehand, they very kindly took us shopping on Saturday. Of course, we had to stop at the supermarket for a coffee and I can't remember what was said but it really amused them both.

Next - today's little star!

Lacie, my youngest great-granddaughter, is three today. She is a spirited wee thing who makes me laugh. For the size of her she's such a bossy boots and has everyone wrapped round her little finger!

I had a stroll round the garden today and thought I'd show you the change that is being made to the wildflower bed.

It's not finished yet but, as you can see, most of the plants have been replaced with weed suppressant and red bark. As we are getting older we are finding weeding and tending everything just a bit too much so we decided this bed had to go ... it was the most labour intensive of all our beds. It's not finished but as the EM is out of commission for the time being it will have to wait.

Finally, here's a selection of the roses and other flowers still in bloom around the rest of the garden at the moment.

This is only a small selection - I would bore you silly if I showed you all of them. I don't think they know it's October yet.

As you can see, I've had quite a lot to smile about but to see many more reasons to smile pop over to Annie's, at A Stitch In Time.

Have a great weekend. 

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 489

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are having a lovely day. Here the sun is shining and the day looks promising but that isn't stopping me from participating, bearing all, in Julia's What's On Your Desk. Actually, for reasons mentioned in previous posts so I won't bore you with repetition, not much has changed in the last couple of weeks so here it is in all it's messy glory.

Mainly it's covered in piles of festive stamps and packs of patterned paper. I'd like to say I've made a ton of cards but, truth time, I haven't. I've just been plugging away whenever I found the odd moment. Without the EM to take up the slack, domestic duties have had to take precedence. Not that I'm complaining - it is what it is!

However! I have managed a bit more knitting - something to do in the evening, on the sofa, in front of the TV. My very first sock, ever, is coming along very nicely indeed and I've just started to turn the heel. I have high hopes of finishing the pair before 2019.

Finally, here's the book bit.

Just the one today - Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. This biography of the founder of computer science is a huge listen - almost 31 hours - so I assume that it's a long read too. A heavy one too - the maths is incredibly detailed! However, I have to say it is a fascinating account of an extraordinary mind and life. Given my background in military communications and computer operation it's just my cup of tea, but it may not be for everyone. Turing developed his revolutionary concept, as early as 1936, of a universal machine and this led eventually to the foundation for the modern computer - the very technology we bloggers rely on today. And his role in breaking the German Enigma ciphers at Bletchley Park during World War II is also fascinating. I'm still listening, I did say it's a long book, so haven't yet reached the part where he is  persecuted by the establishment for his homosexuality and, as a result, his sad ending ...

As I mentioned earlier, I've been working on cards recently and scrapbooking has been neglected but that's about to change. I have, a tad impulsively, signed up for the Mind The Scrap cyber crop taking place this weekend - yes, the whole weekend! It promises to be intense but fun. I'm looking forward it.

If you haven't participated in What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday before but fancy joining in the fun do pop over to the Stamping Ground where you can find all the information you need here. It's really too easy, post a photo of your desk, tidy or messy it doesn't matter, and add your link to all the others. It's fun, you'll see.

In the meantime, have a very happy WOYWW and a great week ahead.

The Two Pages Made at the Scrap Dollies Crop

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all having a good day. Weather here is abysmal so taking refuge in the craft room. Such a change from yesterday when the sun was shining making the bus journey to our health centre a pleasure. The EM was seen by the practice nurse who checked him over and said the wound was healing nicely. So everything is hunky-dory, thank goodness.

On to the layouts I'm sharing today. A couple of weeks ago, on 7th of the month, I went along to an all-day crop ran by Scrap Dollies in the church hall in little town of Stewarton in East Ayrshire, which is not too far from home for me. It was good fun and I'm getting to know the lovely ladies who came along - many travelling from much further afield than I do. As usual, I took several of my homemade kits with me but despite beavering away most of the day I still managed to make only two pages. I've said it before but I'll say it again, I'm the slowest scrapper on the planet! 

Here's the first of the pages.

Celebrate

I find working from sketches very helpful so took along Kristine Davidson's Creative Scrappers Creating with Sketches book - I think I might have mentioned it in a previous post. Both pages are based on sketches I particularly like and have used a couple of times before. The photos were taken at my son-in-law's 50th birthday in 2014. My daughter arranged it as a joint celebration as they also celebrated their Silver Wedding Anniversary that year too. The party was a great success with people coming from all over the country for the occasion. I was able to use leftover scraps of patterned paper together with some very old embellishments for this layout. The camera and crosses did come from American Crafts' One Canoe Two sticker book.

The second of the pages could not be more different.

Four Generations

This is one for my family history album. The photo. c 1920, is of four generations of women from the paternal side of my family -  my grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother with the youngest at the time when the photo was taken, my Auntie Irene - the lady responsible for my second name! They all look so serious waiting for the photographer to do his stuff. Most of the patterned paper is from a project life collection, Rain by Becky Higgins, bought solely with the family history album in mind - the colours and patterns are good with older photos. Everything else is from stash and the circles were punched from matching PL cards.  

There's a pocket on the back of the page which contains this card which has more information about everyone in the photo. 

So there we are, just two pages to show for a whole day of scrapping. Not a lot, but I'm so pleased to have a few more photos scrapped and tucked away in the relevant albums. There's a cyber crop coming up at the weekend, hosted by Emma at Mind The Scrap, that I'm planning to participate in - hopefully making many more pages. In the meantime, I'm still making Christmas cards, some of which I plan to share soon.

Take care and happy crafting,